New Syllabus

Stanford University

Urban Studies 105

Tues., Thurs;

Instructor: Cecil Brown. Ph.D ( browncecil8@gmail.com )

Urban Studies 105 Gentrification in Oakland

Exploring the Walking Tours of  Oakland 

The Hipster and the City: Digital Humanities, Race, Ethnicity, and Gentrification in Oakland 

“City as a Classroom” : Studying Gentrification through the lens of  Virtual Reality (VR) and Augment  Reality (AR), and GPS). https://sites.google.com/view/urbanhipster/home

This course is dedicated the Inspired by the word of Canadian social theorists Marshall McLuhan, this course explores the interplay between anthropology and media studies.

As a way to explore oral poetry and the myth of the poet in contemporary society, it opens up the environment outside the classroom—and brings the outside inside.

Instead of a book as a guiding principle, we chose to use digital tools such as provided by Apple and Google platforms.

Emergent Technology and  The African American Culture in the City

In the recent months and years, Apple and Google have provided academics with tools that allow for a different look into the study of American culture.  Previous to these innovations, Marshal McLuhan laid the groundwork for how we should use these tools.

That is why It is crucial that the student begins the class by reviewing the film by Prof. McLuhan, “Using the City as a Classroom.” (Youtube).

Furthermore, this course introduces undergraduate students to the theory and methods of the geospatial history (and humanities), understood broadly as the application of GIS (Geographical Information System) techniques and other quantitative methods in the humanistic study of social and cultural patterns in past and recent settings. 

Finally, this course is inspired by Gladys Mae West, the black woman who discovered the GPS.

Born and raised under the segregation in Virginia, Mrs West is a woman and Black who is often overlook in a white-male dominated ,and yet without the GPS most of modern communication  would not be possible.

Because of her discovery, we are able to understand urban problems like gentrification is through Urban Storytelling, i.e.to listening to the stories that people tell about their experience in the city. 

Using Halo, Areo, ARKit 6,  Descript (podcasting) and other spatial theory and technical learning methodologies, Google Street view, and Tagging collectives, and GPS, we will take Walking Tours through Oakland to understand gentrification. 

Students will select one of five areas of Oakland and interview people and record their stories. This is a course that is place-bashed audio storytelling with the Detour software that is used in Stanford’s Media X department. 

As an urban storyteller himself, the student learns that stories are place-based. Next, he learns how to find a Narrator, who can tell the story, and finally, he finds the story itself. 

Hybrid course 

This is a hybrid course equal part classic seminar and creative workshop. Students will 

work in small groups to document places that have stories in them. These place-based stories help him to unite the various elements of artistic and political groups. 

Place-centered and Location-based stories 

To begin the Course Project of creating a Location-based audio tour, Students will select one of five Neighborhoods (Areas) in Oakland to collect stories from. 

1. Lake Merritt, (2) Dogtown, (2) East Oakland, (4) Fruitvale -Oscar Grant), (5) Frank Ogawa Plaza at city Hall.and we will be on trail of social movements like Occupy Oakland. These places are further characterized by where they fit in Oakland Gentrification Map. (http://www.governing.com/gov- data/oakland-gentrification-maps-demographic-data.html.) 

2. Books: My Avatar, My Self, and My Identity in the Video Role-Playing Video Games by Zack Waggoner

Race To Technology by Raja Benjamin

 The Tools and the Tours: We will listen to audio programs and walking tours. We will other VR sites.

The emphasis is on “walking.” Walking Tours, which differ from podcast in a significant way. The Walking tour is a story told in transition from one place (a stop) to another place (a leg), along a distinct path. The walking tour changes its point of views of shifting signs and symbols that are consistent with gentrification.

AR/VR is a dynamic tool of inquiry—an extension of a student’s curiosity about a topic. A good podcast invites the listener into an experience or insight that combines theories, facts and feelings into a space of empathy—a rewarding experience both for the storyteller and the listener.

The Tools: Role-playing Horton/Avatar, Live-streaming, importation, AI, and Podcasts. The best tool is Voice Maps.com. 

This devise allows the student me make a “voice” map of his or her journey through urban sites. It is the most compelling way to record one’s experiences that connect the psyche and its relationship to Geography. Geographical psychology are “the places where people live vary considerably in terms of their social, economic, political, climatic, and physical characteristics,” according to the internet. Students will explore “these conditions affect how people from different regions behave and interact with their environments and each other.”

The Tours 

At each Tour there are a series of “Stop”s and “Legs.” At the Stop, there is an Anchor which the player synchs up with. The player “explores” the data here. Then continues on “The Leg.”

At the “Stop,” the player stops to download from a Anchor videos of Horton’s poetry being read either by an Avatar or by the player.

COURSE OUTCOME 

By the end of the course, committed students will be able to: • Define gentrification
• Use digital software Halo, Areo, Arkit 6, and Voice maps.com  to make Podcasts

• Understand the history, background, and cultural roots of gentrification. 

• Appreciate the class structure involved in gentrification. 

• An understanding of Geographical Psychology: how environments make us feel who we are.

• Demonstrate the significant relationship between incarceration and gentrification 

• Evaluate the positive and negative results of gentrification. 

• Demonstrate a command of the relevant theoretical literature by applying these concepts to their hands-on projects . Show it! Visualize it! Be There! Walk the beat! Tell the story! 

• Use the geospatial in other disciplines like humanities (Urban Studies and African American History--race and ethnicity--in the City, i.e., Oakland.)\ 

• Know the History and Theory of Gentrification, mass incarceration in our urban environments. 

Each student will work on a project-based component. These projects which will be the focus of a theoretical rigor, analyze patterns of change in time and space -- with respect to a range of questions relating to social change as it take shape in space and historical time. 

These are the type of questions that will guide the students’ research. What are the underlying warrants for picking a particular method? How does one make use of the geospatial statistics in relation to social, historical and cultural change? How does the student add critical commentary on the results of his study? 

Community Engagement 

As this is a community engagement class, we want the students to have three purposes in the course. 

First, learning from a community organization will help inform the basic content of the course. 

Second, writing essays and producing podcast; and scripts that involve the everyday activities of the citizens in the neighborhood which will help the student learn what cannot be taught in books. 

Third, working with a community group which will give the opportunity to see what it is that we can do to help our cities.